List Of Deaths On The Pacific Crest Trail

So you are interested in hiking the Pacific Crest Trail but you don’t know if you’re quite ready to drag yourself across a continent for five months and probably die? Need to come up with some statistics to put to rest your family’s fears that you will be dragged from your sleeping bag in the night by a bloodthirsty animal? Want to know how you can expect to meet your maker should this hike turn out to be your last? Not interested in any of this and don’t know why you’re still reading?

Luckily for you I have some answers.

After fractions of hours of research, I have compiled the following list of thru-hiker deaths on the Pacific Crest Trail:

Maybe you’ll be attacked by vicious love-making beetles.

FALLING | 3

CARS | 2

HEAT STROKE | 1

MOUNTAIN LIONS | 0

BEARS OF ANY SORT | 0

POISONOUS ARACHNIDS | 0

VENOMOUS SNAKES | 0

DEADLY INSECTS | 0

MURDER | 0

ALIEN ABDUCTION | 0?

ILLNESS | 0

SUICIDE | 0

TERRORISM | 0

LIGHTNING | 0

HYPOTHERMIA | 0

SO WHAT ARE THE DETAILS?

Here is a more detailed account of the deaths noted above (in chronological order):

FALLING | Gerald Duran | Winter 1983 | During a winter thru-hike attempt, Gerald Duran and his hiking partner Jodi Zatchick fell off a cliff face near Wrightwood, California after losing the trail and slipping on an icy slope. (source).

FALLING | Jodi Zatchick | Winter 1983 | During a winter thru-hike attempt, Jodi Zatchick and her hiking partner Gerald Duran fell off a cliff face near Wrightwood, California after losing the trail and slipping on an icy slope. (source).

HIT BY CAR | Jane Rodman | Nov. 19, 1995 | While taking a road walk detour down Highway 138 in Southern California, both her and Flicka Rodman were struck and killed by a motorist who lost control of his vehicle after falling asleep at the wheel (he received a five-day jail sentence) (source).

HIT BY CAR | Flicka Rodman | Nov. 19, 1995 | While taking a road walk detour down Highway 138 in Southern California, both him and Jane Rodman were struck and killed by a motorist who lost control of his vehicle after falling asleep at the wheel (he received a five-day jail sentence) (source).

UNKNOWN | John Donovan | May, 2005 | John Donovan died after becoming lost on Southern California’s Mt. San Jacinto in an unseasonal snowstorm. His body was not recovered until more than a year later. The cause of death is unknown, but hypothermia is suspected (source).

FALLING | Ray “No Way Ray” Echols | May 15, 2006 | Near Deep Creek in the San Bernardino National Forest (California), Ray Echols lost his footing and fell approximately 200 feet to his death (source).

HEAT STROKE | Timothy Evan Nodal | April 24, 2014 | Near Lake Morena (California) Timothy Nodal began to feel sick and emergency services were summoned. When firefighters reached him, they were going over his symptoms when he suddenly went into arrest. Emergency personel was unable to revive him (source).

What do all these deaths have in common? They all happened in the desert (that is, the southernmost 700 miles of the PCT). No wonder hikers complain so much about that place.

The deadliest killers on the Pacific Crest Trail.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

I also came across the following deaths which occurred on or near the PCT but did not involve thru-hikers:

FALLING OBJECTS | Phillip Crosby | December 11, 2014 | Camped off the PCT near Mt. Ashland Ski Lodge (Oregon), Phillip Crosby was crushed by a tree that fell on his tent in strong wind (source).

FALLING | 20-year-old male | August 20, 2013 | A man free-climbing a rock face with friends near the PCT in Yakima County (Washington) fell to his death (source).

SUICIDE| Douglas Cracker | October 29, 1988 | A hiker on the PCT discovered the body of Douglas Cracker, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, half a mile north of Highway 62 in Crater Lake National Park (source).

And that’s it! (That are readily available via the internets and that we know of.)

It turns out that the Pacific Crest Trail is a safe place to be (and when the zombies, robots, or aliens finally decide to make their move, I’ll bet it’ll be even safer). Of course, there may be more death along the PCT than reported, but the reality is that there is very little (but don’t trust me). So if you ever see a headline something like, “Hiker deaths on the PCT jump 200% in the National Scenic Trail’s deadliest year ever!“, know that this means ten people died doing something inherently dangerous (aka it’s clickbait).

So if you have some mental block about hiking the PCT because of all the scary things that are waiting for you out there, then know that despite those things actually existing, they are unlikely to kill you.

“Since its formation in 1977, there has been only one known attempt to hike the PCT in winter, by couple Gerald Duran and Jodi Zatchick back in 1983. They were traveling south to north and were hiking towards Wrightwood, California, to resupply when they got lost. They had started down the wrong canyon and ended up on much steeper terrain than their intended Acorn Trail. As they were descending, they slipped on an icy slope and then fell several hundred feet off a cliff face to their deaths.” – http://www.outsideonline.com/1930861/first-ever-winter-thru-hike-pct

Very interesting! I did some quick more poking around the internets and couldn’t find anything else about these two. I’ll update with a reference to this article. Maybe I’ll get in touch with the author to ask about where this information came from.

kat lady

So I was reading A Blistered Kind of Love and it mentions a death in 1999 that’s not listed here – John Lowder. There’s some debate about if he was a thru hiker or not but he started pretty close to Campo and was planning to go all way to Canada. No links on news sources that’s still up but here’s some PCT-L emails about it from the archives.

Thanks for pointing this out. May have to send an email to the authors of A Blistered Kind of Love to see if they can provide any more information (since the PCT-L isn’t usually the most reliable source of information). Thanks!

ABOUT

Halfway Anywhere started out in 2011 as a way for me to share my travels with friends and family. Since then it has grown tremendously into a not only a collection of my own stories and travels, but as a resource for anyone looking to step into the world of adventure.

My mission is to provide and share information gathered from firsthand experience to make travel more accessible to everyone looking to escape those prohibitive zones of comfort.